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Here are the facts per Ombamacarefacts.com:
We present the facts on Obama Care (ObamaCare), the health care plan for America. Our goal is to help you understand the basics of the ObamaCare health care plan, so you can decide for yourself what you think about the new health care law, based on the facts and not the talking points.
(ObamaCare Facts Image Public Domain, Photo by Chuck Kennedy; U.S. Government Work)
• ObamaCare, Obama Care and health care reform are all the same thing. The official name for "ObamaCare" is the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act, a bill signed into law to reform the health care industry by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.
• ObamaCare's goal is give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the U.S.
• The fact is ObamaCare does not replace private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. If you have health coverage you like, you can keep it.
• ObamaCare regulates some of the worst practices of the for profit health care industry.
• Many of Obamacare's numerous provisions are already enacted. The rest of the program starts in 2013-2014 and continues to roll out until 2022. Over 100 million Americans have already benefited from the new health care law.
• ObamaCare offers a number of new rights and protections including (but in no means limited to) requiring that all insurance plans cover preventive services and provide new essential health benefits. It also stops insurance companies from dropping you when you are sick or make an honest mistake on your application, prevents against gender discrimination and requires all insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
In exchange for the new rights and protections most Americans must obtain health coverage by 2014, get an exemption, or pay a fee. Learn more about the ObamaCare Individual Mandate.
• To help make buying affordable health insurance easy ObamaCare creates State specific health insurance marketplaces (also known as exchanges) where Americans without health coverage can shop for health insurance using cost assistance.
• Open Enrollment in Your State's marketplace is from Oct 1st, 2013 and closes March 31st, 2014.
• Young adults can now stay on their parents health insurance plans until they are 26.
• Up to 82% of nearly 16 million uninsured young U.S. adults will qualify for cost assistance or Medicaid through Obamacare's marketplaces.
• The amount of young people who sign up for insurance will greatly impact the effectiveness of the program, as healthy young adults are the least likely to use health care services.
After you get done reading the ObamaCare facts check out our full, in detail, summary of Obama Care to get the facts on how Obama's health care reform will really work: Healthcare Reform Summary
• ObamaCare is a hot button political issue and both sides of the aisle will try to persuade you for or against it. Get THE FACTS on ObamaCare and American Health Care Reform.
• The Fact is ObamaCare gives 47 million women access to preventive health services and makes it illegal to charge women different rates than men.
• ObamaCare gives seniors access to cheaper drugs, free preventive care, reforms Medicare Advantage, and closes the Medicare Part D 'donut hole. The AARP agrees, costs won't rise because of ObamaCare, if anything, the improvements to the system will decrease the average cost of health care for seniors.
• 1 in 2 Americans have a "pre-existing" condition they could be denied health insurance for. ObamaCare chips Away at pre-existing conditions until 2014 when there are no more pre-existing conditions for anyone, including high-risk customers. This means you can no longer be denied coverage or treatment or charged more for health status.
• 54 million Americans with private health insurance now have access to preventive services with no cost sharing due to the new minimum standards of ObamaCare.
• ObamaCare doesn't ration health care; it protects consumers from the health care rationing insurance companies have been doing for ages.
• ObamaCare reduces the growth in healthcare spending. The current $2.8 trillion U.S. healthcare system costs almost $9k a year for every man, woman, and child.
• Most Americans must obtain qualifying health insurance by January 1st, 2014, get an exemption or pay a fee for every month they are without insurance. The fee is paid on your federal income tax return. This fee is commonly referred to as an Individual Mandate and is part of the shared responsibility provision.
• About 26 million people are projected to be exempt from having to obtain health coverage.
• Most Americans have the option to stay on their current healthcare plans. No one, including seniors, will be forced not to have healthcare. That's an ObamaCare fact.
• If you don't have coverage, you can use the new Health Insurance Marketplace to buy a private insurance plan. Many Americans will qualify for lower costs on monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs through the marketplace. Please note that if you have access to employer based insurance you cannot get cost assistance through the marketplace.
• Your State's Health Insurance Marketplace Opens Oct 1st, 2013 and closes March 31st, 2014. Insurance companies will compete to be your healthcare provider via your State's Health Insurance Marketplace, which is sometimes called a Health Insurance Exchange.
• Americans earning below 400% of the Federal Poverty Level may be eligible for cost assistance on the marketplace. Read our Complete Guide to the Health Insurance Exchanges to find out how to navigate your State's exchange and how to get the best deals for you, your family and your business.
• 6 in 10 Americans without health insurance can get health insurance for under $100 through their State's Health Insurance Marketplace. Many low income Americans will have an option for free health insurance when applying through the marketplace.
• Should I buy insurance through the health insurance marketplace? Your options for obtaining coverage are changing. For some of us buying private insurance through the health insurance marketplace will be our best option, for others buying health insurance through a private broker will be the smarter move. .
• HealthCare.gov is the official site on the Affordable Care Act and the Health Insurance Marketplace. Ready to sign up for health insurance?
• Any insurance plan that starts after 2014 must follow new health insurance rules and include Ten Essential Benefits. All health plans sold through the health insurance marketplace adheres to these rules.
• Policies issued before 2010 ("grandfathered" health plans) don't have to adhere to all the new rights and protections offered by the Affordable Care Act.
• ObamaCare takes measures to prevent all types of discrimination in regards to your right to health care. Factors such as pre-existing conditions, health status, claims history, duration of coverage, gender, occupation, and small employer size and industry can no longer be used by insurance companies to increase health insurance premiums.
• The only factors that can affect premiums of new insurance plans starting in 2014 are your income, age, tobacco use, family size, geography and the type of plan you buy. This applies to all plans sold through your State's health insurance marketplace.
• The amount of out-of-pocket costs your health plan covers can affect your rates. Plans that cover more out-of-pocket costs like deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments also have higher premiums.
• Smokers can expect to pay up to 50% more than non-smokers for the same health plans. Subsidies are given before being charged a "tobacco surcharge" meaning that smokers could find affordable insurance being unaffordable. Get the facts on ObamaCare and smokers.
• Employers can use the SHOP marketplace, a part of the health insurance exchange, to purchase affordable coverage for their workers saving employers up to 50% of low to moderate earning workers premiums in the form of tax credits.
• Did your health insurance premium go up? The fact is ObamaCare enacted a number of consumer protections, including a rate review provision, where insurance companies have to justify rate hikes above 10% to your State and post details online immediately. Yet, many Americans are still seeing their premiums rise at alarming rates. Learn more about ObamaCare Insurance Premiums
• ObamaCare is the first step toward true health care reform in the US. The fact is about 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the US are related to medical bills. The health care law helps protect you from medical bankruptcy by ending annual & lifetime limits. Find out more Health Care Facts
• Other insurance reforms to curb the cost of premiums are already in effect as well. These include a Medical Loss Ratio policy and other accountability measures. Many more protections go into effect in 2014. So far, the average insurance premium has gone down. Americans saved $2.1 billion due to the new ObamaCare consumer protection provisions in 2012 alone.
• ObamaCare means 21 new taxes. Get the facts on how they will affect you, your family and your business. ObamaCare Taxes Facts
• ObamaCare states that "affordable insurance" means paying no more than 8% of your annual income on or 9.5% of family income if insurance is obtained through an employer. Please note ObamaCare does not guarantee "affordable insurance".
• ObamaCare provides lower prescription drug costs for people on Medicare.
• ObamaCare provides free preventive women's services, including mammograms, as one of the 10 essential benefits covered under every new insurance plan.
• Young, healthy Americans and those making above 400% of the FPL are projected to pay more for insurance while many others are projected to pay significantly less.
• We've created a detailed ObamaCare Facts timeline of every protection, benefit, and tax laid out by the Affordable Care Act Bill from 2010 to 2022. Health Care Reform Timeline
• ObamaCare ensures that there are no out-of-pocket costs on patients receiving mammograms and colonoscopies which are two of the most widely used forms of preventive health care.
• ObamaCare reforms and expands Medicaid to an estimated 15 million of our nation's poorest. That's 6.1 million less than the last estimate due to States opting-out out of providing coverage, despite 100% federal funding for the first 3 years and 90% thereafter. ObamaCare Medicaid Expansion
• States will have to spend millions on Medicaid over the next ten years regardless of whether they implement Medicaid Expansion. However, states that do implement ObamaCare's Medicaid Expansion will reap billions in additional federal dollars.
• ObamaCare's new Medicare Value-Based Purchasing Program means hospitals can lose or gain up to 1% of Medicare funding based on a quality v. quantity system. Hospitals are graded on a number of quality measures related to treatment of patients with heart attacks, heart failures, pneumonia, certain surgical issues, re-admittance rate, as well as patient satisfaction. ObamaCare Medicare
• ObamaCare's insurance reform helps to insure millions of Americans each year. 48.6 million Americans went without insurance during all of 2011, compared to 49.9 million in 2010. The rate of uninsured decreased from 16.3% to 15.7%, the biggest percentage drop since 1999 due to the Affordable Care Act.
• Obamacare mandates that Medicaid payments be raised to the same level Medicare pays doctors. While it varies from state to state, primary care physicians will see an average 73% pay increase. This will make it easier for new Medicaid recipients to find doctors willing to take Medicaid.
• 25 States have opted out of setting up a State Run Health Insurance Exchange. This leaves the federal tax payer responsible for providing care for their constituents. 19 are running State Exchanges, while 7 have set up Joint State / Federal Exchanges. Find out more about ObamaCare's State Run Exchanges
• ObamaCare makes it illegal for health insurance companies to terminate coverage for any reason other than customer fraud.
• ObamaCare provides $20 billion in tax credits for as many as 4 million Small Businesses to offset the cost of purchasing insurance on the Health Insurance Exchanges.
• Medicare and Medicaid both help to prevent "price gouging" by hospitals. The reforms ObamaCare enacts help to strengthen these protections.
• Only the top 3% of small businesses will have to pay the additional 0.9% ObamaCare Medicare tax increase.
• Only .2% of businesses have over 50 employees and don't already offer insurance to full-time workers. Providing these folks with insurance is the only "employer mandate" in ObamaCare.
• Want single payer? By 2017, states will be able to get a waiver to set up their own approved health care solution, as long as it meets the standards of ObamaCare.
• The CBO estimates 19 million Americans (of the 23 million estimated to use the exchange) will receive Tax Credits to Purchase Insurance on the Exchanges.
• Due to Tax Credits and up-front assistance, Americans making less than 400% of the FPL (roughly $88k for a family of 4) could see up to a 60% reduction in the cost of health insurance premiums.
• Uninsured Americans cost the American healthcare system an additional $49 billion. Only 12% of uninsured families pay their hospital bills in full, this includes families making over $88k a year. These costs affect the rising cost of insurance premiums; ObamaCare helps to reduce this spending drastically.
• The cost of insurance premiums must be 8% or less of your modified adjusted gross income, when insurance goes on sale via the health insurance exchanges in 2014, to be considered affordable.
• ObamaCare allows newly insured Americans to choose any available participating primary care provider, OB-GYN, or pediatrician in their health plan’s network, or emergency care outside of the plan’s network, without a referral.
• ObamaCare prevents insurance companies from limiting the number of benefits a customer can receive in their lifetime.
• Members of Congress will purchase their health care through the health exchange like the rest of us (who chose not to opt out and pay a tax, are covered by Medicaid or choose to stay on their existing insurance) Get more facts about the ObamaCare Insurance Exchange
• In 2011, ObamaCare helped around 86 million Americans use free preventive services that had previously been subject to co-pays or deductibles.
• ObamaCare aims to improve community health care centers in an effort improve health care for those who cannot afford private health care.
• ObamaCare doesn't increase the deficit. It is projected to cut the deficit by over a trillion dollars over the next two decades.
• ObamaCare offers countless benefits and protections that have been rolling out since 2010 and continue into 2022. Find out more about the Benefits of ObamaCare
• In 2013, American employers with 25 or less full-time employees may receive tax breaks of up to 35% (25% non-profits) of the cost of their employees' insurance premiums. In 2014, it increases to 50% (35%).
• Employers with more than 50 full-time employees must insure their workers or pay a tax (like the current state run unemployment and workers compensation programs)
• ObamaCare won't cause 650,000 jobs to be lost as some of its detractors say (the number isn't even in the CBO report on The Affordable Care Act). The often misrepresented quote stated that part of the job loss ObamaCare creates is from employees who cut back their hours, since they will no longer have to rely solely on their jobs for their family's health care. In fact, ObamaCare's effect on job growth in Government jobs and Health Care rivals job loss in other markets.
• Although ObamaCare hasn't resulted in job loss, the "employer mandate" has resulted in a number of full-time workers having their hours cut back to part time in order for employers to avoid providing their full-timers with health insurance.
• ObamaCare doesn't regulate health care, it regulates health insurance. What is ObamaCare?
• If an you or your family chooses not to purchase healthcare through the Online Health Insurance Exchange, they can still buy private insurance, get insurance through their employer, Medicare, or Medicaid. Those who chose to not purchase insurance will pay an income "penalty" tax to help cover the rest of us. In other words, it's a tax, not a mandate; no one is actually forcing you to have health insurance.
• Obamacare cuts $716 billion of waste from Medicare and reimbursements to private Medicare Advantage plans and reinvests it into Obama's health care reform. In other words $716 billion is saved and then $716 billion is reinvested back into ObamaCare and Medicare. Doctors and hospitals almost universally agree on this reform.
• 19 million Americans will receive tax credits to help pay for healthcare and most middle class Americans will actually save thousands on healthcare via tax cuts.
• The Affordable Care Act is sometimes called the ACA for short.
• ObamaCare reduces costs of premiums to millions of families and small businesses and provides billions dollars in tax relief – the largest middle class tax cut in health care in history.
• The healthcare industry, specifically doctors, will be rewarded for quality over quantity.
• The Affordable Care Act allows religious institutions to choose to be exempt from providing controversial contraception and reproductive health services to women. Multiple businesses have also received an exemption after taking the ruling to court.
• Although some businesses have won injunctions allowing them to avoid the "contraception mandate", there have been a number who have lost their cases including Hobby Lobby.
• The Affordable Health Care Act doesn't just focus on insurance, it also reforms the parts of the healthcare system that aren't working, or are costing the tax payer money. For example, by focusing on preventive measures instead of just treatment, ObamaCare will save tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
• The ObamaCare fact is the average American will save money under ObamaCare. In fact, many Americans are already paying less for health care services.
• ObamaCare cuts the national deficit by over two hundred billion dollars during it's first 10 years.
• ObamaCare aims to make it easier for small businesses to provide coverage to workers by offering Tax Credits to employers who enroll their workers in private healthcare plans.
• One of the main goals of ObamaCare is to ensure that all preventive care will be free on all insurance plans. Private insurance plans, that are grandfathered in and are all ready in place, may be exempt until they lose their grandfathered status.
In exchange for the new rights and protections most Americans must obtain health coverage by 2014, get an exemption, or pay a fee. Learn more about the ObamaCare Individual Mandate.